You join a product with good sign-ups but very low retention. What would you do in your first 90 days?
What the interviewer wants to hear
- Understand the data: cohorts, activation, churn points
- Talk to retained and churned users
- Find the aha moment and activation gap
- Prioritise experiments on onboarding and core value
- Align the team on a retention goal and measure
Model answer
In the first month I would focus on understanding. I would study cohort retention curves, the activation funnel, and differences between users who stay and those who leave, for example which actions retained users take in their first week. I would also talk to both retained and churned users to learn why. From this I would form a view of the aha moment and where new users fail to reach it. In the second month I would align the team on one retention goal, such as week-4 retention, and prioritise experiments like better onboarding, removing friction in the core action, or targeted reminders. I would also check whether some acquisition channels bring low-quality users. In the third month we run and measure those experiments, double down on what works and share progress regularly with leadership.
Can you answer it under time pressure?
Take a timed hard round and get scored on every answer.
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